Ang Lee, the Oscar-winning director, is in talks to adapt the Booker
Prize-winning novel Life of Pi into a Hollywood movie.

Many had thought Yann Martel's best-selling fable of a boy cast adrift on the ocean with a Bengal tiger for company to be 'unfilmable', and several Hollywood treatments have fallen by the wayside.

However, studio Fox 2000 is hiring a new screenwriter and Lee is seriously considering the project, according to Variety.

Life of Pi is the best-selling Booker Prize winner of all time and became a global phenomenon after its 2002 win, translated into 40 languages.

The novel tells the story of Pi Patel, the son of Indian zookeepers, who is shipwrecked during a Pacific crossing. Pi is the only human survivor and shares his lifeboat with a tiger, an orangutan, a zebra and a hyena. Soon, Pi and the tiger are the boat's sole passengers on a journey which lasts for 227 days. The book's meaning has long been the source of debate amongst fans.

The fantastical voyage will be translated to the screen using a mixture of live action and computer generated imagery. Martel, a Spanish-Canadian author, has previously professed himself "amazed" by plans for the Hollywood adaptation.